With the addition of Cal, Ole Miss now has matchups against other Power Five schools in seven of the next 11 years:

2016 vs. Florida State in Orlando

2017 at Cal

2019 vs. Cal

2022 at Georgia Tech

2023 vs. Georgia Tech

2024 at Wake Forest

2025 vs. Wake Forest

The neutral-site matchup against Florida State marks the first time the Rebels will play a power-five conference team in the regular season since a home-and-home with Texas in 2012 and 2013.

Ole Miss continues to work toward finding matchups for the 2018, 2020 and 2021 season, which would satisfy a new Southeastern Conference strength-of-schedule component that requires all schools to play an ACC, Big 12, Big Ten or Pac-12 opponent on an annual basis, a component that goes into effect in 2016.

Here's a rundown of other scheduling news:

Ole Miss announced the dates for the Rebels' nonconference opponents for 2016:

Sept. 5 vs. Florida State in Orlando

Sept. 10 vs. Wofford

Oct. 1 vs. Memphis

Nov. 5 vs. Georgia Southern

Ole Miss also announced the movement of nonconference matchups of a road game at Memphis, from 2017 to 2019, and a home game against Tulane, from 2017 to 2019, and the addition of nonconference matchups, all home games, against Tennessee-Martin (2017), Southeastern Louisiana (2019) and Tulane (2025).

The road game at Memphis in 2019 marks the fourth game of a four-year contract to renew the football series, a series resumed with a home game in 2014 and will continue with a road game in 2015 and another home game in 2016.

I was really pleased with the 15 practices we had. We have finally established a little depth where we can go out and have competitive practices and have someone on the depth chart that's pushing you to be your best each and every day. That changed us more in this spring as opposed to the two previous springs because we had some guys push each other and we got some of our injured players back from the season. I was very excited about the progress we made in the spring.

On the Forward Together capital campaign being $10 million away from the $120 million goal to begin work on the North End Zone expansion after the season:

I leave that up to Ross (Bjork), Keith (Carter) and those guys. We have made a lot of progress on it. I'm confident that they know that they have a great plan in place, and they are certainly working hard at that. Hopefully, all of those things will fall right in line. You know your strengths and weaknesses, so I very rarely get into those discussions. If we're progressing as a football team, we'll do our part in helping that.

On what the renovation and expansion would mean for the program:

When I first got here, they had a lot of discussions going on about that. I was very vocal that the first thing was to do what we have done with the $15 million renovation of the new locker room, nutrition center, weight room, team room and all of the things we have done there in the Manning Center. That was a priority for me over the expansion of the stadium. Now, I do think we're at a point where that is the next thing on the agenda. It adds to the signs that we're moving forward as a program and as an athletic department.

On the SEC's quarterback play taking a hit or being a rebuilding job considering the departed quarterbacks:

That would be the initial consensus if you asked anybody. All of us would prefer to have a returning quarterback that has experience. However, having said that, there have been several examples of quarterbacks who did not have that experience that came in and immediately had a huge impact on college football, even in our conference. If you look at what (Johnny) Manziel did when he first arrived on the scene with no experience, and Auburn's guy (Nick Marshall) last year was a huge difference-maker in his team. The consensus would be that you feel comfortable with a returned but that does not always prove to be exactly the best scenario for everyone. You would feel that it's that way with the talent of the kids that we lost out of this league. That's an enormous group. You would think that will take some time to rebuild to that level, but there's always an exception out there somewhere, as we have seen.

On quarterback Bo Wallace having an All-SEC type season:

I certainly hope so. He's thrown for a lot of yards and touchdowns. He has to continue to work on taking care of the ball. In neither one of his seasons did he have a complete year. We're hopeful for that in his senior campaign. He's deserving of the discussions that are going on in regards to that, but the season will decide that. We won't get caught up in what preseason things are said about him, but he's deserving of those discussions.

On the perfect scenario for the four nonconference games:

"We're going to play the one from the other BCS conferences, an (FCS opponent), I would always like to have one of those, and then two mid-major types. With the league schedule that we play and the other school that you will choose to play from a power conference, that's the best make-up for us at Ole Miss. We've gone through a year of injuries, and we see how that affects us, and the wear and tear you take in the league games that we play. It takes its toll on you. That's the best case for us.

On the format for eight conference games:

"I was very clear with our chancellor and our AD that I thought the fairest way to do it was the 6-0-2 (format) and rotate the other two (Eastern Division) opponents. However, having said that, I also said to them that the priority is we want to stay at eight games. Whatever momentum was in the room to stay at eight, I would be OK with either. That was my exact conversation. I think the fairest way would have been the 6-0-2 method, but I wanted to stay at eight for sure. That was our priority. I haven't seen which way everybody voted. I just saw what the result was, so I can't speak a lot on what other people said because I haven't seen it. That's the conversation I had with my administration.

On being in favor of eight conference games:

"I was in favor of eight just because we beat each other up enough, and we've been very successful with eight in putting our teams in the national championship hunt and being successful at. I don't know why we would want to change until it's proven that doesn't work anymore. What we have done with eight games is put our team -- more than one usually -- in the hunt for a national championship berth, so I would like for us to stay with that. It's best for us at Ole Miss for sure to stay at eight, so that's what our preference was.

Recent Comments

How can you have five straight top 25 recruiting classes and look as bad as Ole Miss has this year. Easy lack of coaching fundamentals. Look at Mason at Vandy, nothing but 2 and 3 star recruits out of high school and he developers players that want to win. Hugh freeze has 3, 4 & 5 recruits and he expects them to win because of what they were in High School. Mr. Freeze you have not been teaching the fundamentals of football or winning in life. Mr. Freeze you have quit on your players because you have some false expectations of what they are instead of what you can develop in them. Either do your job or quit. Oh yea, please quit running your smoke and mirrors offense, everyone has figured it out. Run a physical offense that can open up holes for your running backs and then your pass attack want require 12 are 14 four and five star receivers. Mr. Freeze you have problems and you need to know that you are not smarter than the rest of the coaches in the SEC.

Not every pass can be caught. Too low, too short whatever. Not every Kelly pass is perfect. Records were broken by receivers also. But they sre not going to catch every ball thrown. The loss to Auburn was not one players fault. You win or lose as a team.

Hey I was just wandering if these are the only 2 olemiss players signing. If there are more signing please respond to me ASAP. Also wondering if neil everett will sign any autographs. Thank you very much